


Lonliness Starts Sinking In

by LeftHandOfSnarkness



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Luke doesn't train Rey, Slow Burn, grey!rey, unredemed Kylo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-02 14:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8671429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeftHandOfSnarkness/pseuds/LeftHandOfSnarkness
Summary: She would rather remember him as a monster in a mask, or as the crazed man with the bowcaster wound who had slashed at her with his lightsaber in the snowy woods. "Quiet" and "sad" reminded her too much of herself, too much of the whisper in his voice as he dug through her mind. Don’t be afraid, I feel it too. Too much of waiting for things that never came and nights spent praying for sleep to take the pain away.





	1. Ain't No Room On Board For The Insincere

**Author's Note:**

> The title for this work comes from the song "I'm One" off The Who's album "Quadrophenia."  
> Basically a downer version of what happens after "The Force Awakens," because I am a sucker for unhappy endings.
> 
> See end notes for chapter- specific comments

The first time she heard his voice after Starkiller was when Luke refused to train her.

 _I’m sorry._ He had said, whispering in the back of her mind, his voice as low and gentle as it had been in the interrogation chamber. _You should be_ , she lashed out, _it’s all your fault_. If it hadn’t been for Kylo Ren, Luke Skywalker wouldn’t have looked at her, eyes full of compassion and wariness, and told her that he wouldn’t- couldn’t\- train an other apprentice. Not after what had happened last time. And now she huddled on her bunk in the Millennium Falcon, hot tears streaking down her face, her chest hollow, his voice ringing in her ear. _I know,_ he said, and she pushed him away, angry. What did he know? He had a family, friends, someone to train him, and he had thrown it all away for the Dark side of the Force. He was nothing but an ungrateful brat who had broken all the toys so no one else could play with them.

So she took off across the galaxy with Chewie as her copilot; saw things she had never even dreamed possible growing up on Jakku. Worlds made entirely of water, with glittering cities floating on their surfaces. Cities so huge that they seemed to span whole planets. Jungles so dense and foggy that you could barely see your hand in front of your face. Frozen wastelands that stole your breathe from your chest and froze your eyelashes.

She knew that Kylo Ren was in her head, although he hadn’t tried to speak to her again. She could feel him, like a phantom limb- got twinges of emotion and flashes of thought that didn’t belong to her. Sometimes he reached out to her, brushed softly against her mind, but she always shoved him back into the small corner of her brain he had permanently occupied. He made her a danger to the Resistance. She didn’t have the knowledge or the training to keep him out forever, and didn’t know what he could see or hear when he wasn’t making his presence known. He could use her as a spy without her ever knowing it. So she stayed far away from them, even though it killed her to lose Finn, her first and only friend. She picked up on the smuggling missions that Han had lined up before his death, kept herself busy, and tried to ignore the dreams she had of flashing lightsabers and ancient temples. She had learned a long time ago that it didn't help to focus on hopeless dreams.

 _What was he like, as a kid?_ She asked Chewie, once, unable to contain her curiosity any longer, and he gave her with such a deep look that she nearly apologized and left the cockpit. _Kind,_ he finally said in Shyriiwook, _but quiet. And sad._ She wondered what he had to be sad about, when he had a life she would have given anything for, but the topic depressed her Wookie companion, and she didn’t ask him again. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know more, anyway. It didn’t fit with the picture she had of him in her mind, the one she clung to because it was the easiest, the most simple. She would rather remember him as a monster in a mask, or as the crazed man with the bowcaster wound who had slashed at her with his lightsaber in the snowy woods. _Quiet_ and _sad_ reminded her too much of herself, too much of the whisper in his voice as he dug through her mind. _Don’t be afraid, I feel it too._ Too much of waiting for things that never came and nights spent praying for sleep to take the pain away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title for chapter one comes from "Mutineer" by Warren Zevon, off the album of the same name. It is one of my favorite songs, and watching him sing it on his last appearance on David Letterman's show never fails to make me tear up.


	2. They Changed The Stars Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey struggles with her connection to the Force without anyone to teach her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter comes from the song 'They Moved The Moon' from Warren Zevon's album "Transverse City"

She was losing control. Rey had always been disciplined, always had to be. Survival on Jakku depended on being able to force herself almost beyond her limits, whether it was rationing out her water to stretch a few more days or forcing herself just a little bit further to find something useful to scavenge. But ever since Starkiller, she felt her grasp slipping. In the middle of a fight it was easy to reach out and harness the Force, her blood singing in her ears as the lightsaber flew into her hand, the feeling that the whole universe was working _with_ her, _for_ her, as she fought Kylo Ren. It had been instinctual, easy, a heady rush that felt more natural than anything ever had. But now, without someone attacking her, without any real training, she didn’t know how to channel all that energy.

Instead, it builds up around her, like a pressure she can’t escape. Her nerves are constantly on edge and her head throbs painfully. It's exhausting. But sleep was worse, because _he_ would be there. It was hard enough keeping him out of her mind when she was awake, but in her rare moments of rest it was almost impossible. She would fall directly into his dreams, or more often than not, his nightmares. Emotions that weren’t hers would overwhelm her (anger and resentment and _pain_ ) until she felt like she was drowning, and she would wake up again, the room around her spinning and drenched in cold sweat. So she forced herself to stay awake; found endless tasks to keep herself occupied. That wasn't difficult; the years the Falcon had spent in a junk yard had clearly been hard on the old ship, so there were always wires to replace or parts to fix.  Six months of her nightly repairs and it was almost as good as new. But not sleeping wore her down, and she found herself zoning out at inopportune times, or else being distracted by things that weren't really there.

After she and Chewie left Konn-Nevos Spaceport the Wookie told her he wasn’t going to let her fly until she got some sleep. She knew he was concerned about her, she had deep purple bruises under her eyes and she was still underweight even after a year away from scavenging for food. And as much as she appreciated his concern, she didn’t want to burden him with what she was going through, not when he was still grieving Han, not when even she didn't understand what was happening to her. So she smiled and said that she would. She found some sleeping pills in a medkit that promised dreamless sleep, ground one into her glass of water and lay down on her bunk.

She had hoped the drugs would keep him away, hedging her bet on the idea that the chemically induced sleep would blur their connection. But as soon as her eyes closed she knew she had been wrong. _You’ve been keeping me up, Scavenger_ his voice drifted through her mind, soft and terribly close, as if he was right next to her. _What are you talking about?_ She shot back, her body tensing even in its unconscious state. He chuckled, and she swore she could feel his breath against her neck. _You haven’t been sleeping. Why?_ And for a moment she considering lying, telling him that she slept just fine, that he should leave her alone, but it was useless trying to deceive someone who was already in her head. Instead, she opened her mind further, allowing him a glimpse of her struggle to make it through each day.

 _I can teach you how to control it._ He whispered. She wanted to rebuff him, to scream that she didn’t, would never, need his help, but all she could wonder was why he wanted to. _I meant what I said before. I want to teach you_. _Skywalker was a fool for turning you away._ There was something in his voice, something that felt a little too much like longing, like _want_ , that made her consider his offer for the first time since she had left him bleeding in the snow.

She was tired, exhausted, really. Giving up had never come easily to her (even now she sometimes lay awake and wondered if she shouldn’t go back to Jakku, felt the old, familiar fear that someone would come back for her and she wouldn’t be there), but even she had to admit that there was no chance that Luke would change his mind, would train her to be a Jedi. _I won’t join the Dark side._ She said, vehemently, _I won’t become like you or Snoke._ He chuckled again, and she shivered at the sound (too close, too intimate here in the space of her own head). _You won’t have to, little scavenger,_ he said, and when she searched his mind for some form of deception, she couldn't find any. She drew in a deep breath. _Alright, then, teach me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate this chapter, y'all. It's one that I need to get the story where I want it to go, but it was near-impossible to write and I'm not at all happy with it. So if you are put off by it, please keep reading!
> 
> As always, comments and constructive criticism is most welcome!


	3. Nothing Left But You and Me and The Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halfway through! As always, comments and constructive criticism are most welcome!

Normally, she chose to ignore the fact that the connection between them ( _a Force Bond_ , he had called it) was getting stronger the more they used it. Every lesson and shared emotion seemed to reinforce it, until it became so easy to reach out and brush against his consciousness that she found herself doing it without thinking. Now when she fell asleep she rarely saw the nightmares she had previously feared so much. She would be surrounded by darkness still, but somewhere warm and soft, with the phantom impression of a large body pressed against her own.

A part of her thought she should be alarmed at how easily she had allowed him in her mind, because no matter what, he was still Snoke’s apprentice, still a Sith. She still felt all the anger and hatred that seemed to be the only things keeping him going, so strong that sometimes she had to remind herself that those emotions weren’t hers. But after being alone for so long, it was almost pleasant to feel the hum of the bond at the back of her mind as she went about her day. Loneliness had been the defining characteristic of her entire life before Finn had landed on Jakku; the only people who had ever wanted her where those, like Unkar Plutt, who thought they could get something out of her. And eventually, even that hadn’t been enough, because no matter how useful she _knew_ she could be- to the Resistance, to the Jedi- it still wasn’t enough to convince Skywalker to train her.

Kylo Ren, on the other hand, didn’t seem to _want_ anything from her. She kept waiting for him to talk to her about Snoke, about the First Order, the Dark side of the Force, to convince her to give herself over to them. But it never happened. Instead he taught her how to meditate, how to center herself in the galaxy, to make the Force obey her commands. She spent the hours in hyperspace between jobs sitting with her legs cross on her bunk, able to see the bright, warm light that was Chewie behind the controls at the other end of the ship; or else moving the small collection of trinkets she had acquired on their travels through the air, watching them float without effort, even as the artificial gravity of the Falcon kept her rooted to the ground.

( _Does Snoke know about this?_ She asked once. _No._ )

( _Do you regret what you did?_ She asked another time. _No._ he had replied, and when he felt her growing anger he added _I’m not like you, scavenger_ and he had sounded almost sad about that fact.)

(Sometimes she even managed to convince herself that Leia might have been right, that he might not be totally beyond saving. _Don’t try to pretend I’m something other than what I am, scavenger. Han Solo did, and it was the death of him._ )

Eventually she and Chewie had taken a job deep in the Trans-Hydian Borderlands, too close to First Order Territory for her comfort, and she was relieved when it was finally over. They stacked the credits into the hidden panels of the Falcon and made for friendlier space. It had been a good deal, and with the amount of money they had charged the two of them could afford to lay low for a little while. Rey even toyed with the idea of sending a message to Finn. She still didn’t trust herself (or _him_ ) enough to go to the Resistance, but maybe her friend would be able to meet up with her for a couple of days in a neutral location. The more she thought about the plan, the more she liked it. It had been too long that her only human company had been a voice in her head. So she finished the game of sabacc she was playing (Chewie won) and headed to the cockpit to find the com link.

Suddenly, _pain_ , pain like nothing Rey had ever experienced coursed through her, causing her legs to buckle, knees slamming down hard onto the metal floor. She felt as if she were being flayed alive, each nerve burning, a coppery taste filling her mouth. It was only when the sensation ended suddenly, leaving her breathless but unharmed, that she realized that the pain wasn’t hers, that it had bled in through her connection to Kylo Ren. Tentatively, she reached out through their bond, only to find that he had thrown up a solid wall around his mind that rebuffed all her attempts to push through it.

“Everything OK?” Chewie roared from behind her

“Fine,” she yelled back, heart still pounding wildly “I just tripped.” She heard the Wookie chuckle to himself and she forced herself forward, using one of the passenger seats to support her weight. She concentrated on breathing normally, pushing back the surge of adrenaline that pumped through her body. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong with the man at the other end of the bond. All thoughts of a couple of days of vacation vanished in an instant as she tried and failed to feel his presence. She felt something underneath her ribs, a compulsive tugging sensation that she couldn't ignore. She had to find Kylo Ren. _Now_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter comes from Warren Zevon's "Please Stay" off the album 'The Wind'  
> Spoiler alert: all the chapter titles will be from the incomparable Mr. Zevon.


	4. The Past Seems Realer Than the Present To Me Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an other chapter that I struggled a lot with. I don't know why every-other chapter seems to be tripping me up.
> 
>  
> 
> As always, comments and criticism are most welcome!

He looked so much different than she remembered, when she finally found him. Where his eyes had once been dark they were now a strange, sickly yellow that glowed in the dim light of the ancient Temple he had taken shelter in. He wasn’t wearing his mask, and for the first time she saw the scar she had left on his face; a pale, raised ridge that began on his forehead and cut down to his jaw. A lump formed in her throat at the sight of it, and she wondered why he hadn’t let the medics heal it properly. He looked tired, drained, but he was alive, at least. She knelt down beside the bed, uncertain what to do now that she was really here. Somehow talking to him through the bond hadn’t prepared her for seeing him face to face.

 _What happened to you?_ She finally asked, but he just stared at her as if she were a ghost. _Kylo!_ He reached out, tentatively, as if he was sure she wasn’t real, and brushed his fingertips against her cheek. The touch sent shivers down her spine. _Why are you here?_ He said, his voice hoarse. _What happened to you, Kylo. I felt it, whatever it was._ His face hardened, suddenly, and he moved his hand away. _I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to._ She raked her eyes over him, trying to find whatever injury it was that could have caused such an enormous amount of pain, but she couldn’t see anything. He laughed softly, a strange, delirious sound. _It was Snoke. He wasn’t pleased by my lack of progress, and decided to ‘help’ me along._ He tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but he winced and groaned as he tried to shift his weight. Instinctively, she reached forward, helping him lean back against the wall. His skin felt feverishly warm under her hands.

\--

Weeks had come and gone, and Kylo recovered, slowly. Chewbacca would have been waiting for her at their link up spot, and by now he would have left. The Wookie had been her last connection to the resistance, and it was a strange feeling to know that she likely would not be able to find him, or them, even if she tried. It scared her how easily she let it fall away; the future she could have had. The Resistance, the Jedi, Luke Skywalker and Finn, Chewie and the Falcon- they had slipped through her fingers like sand, and she had barely even tried to hold on. She wondered what she was becoming.

She spent her days in the Temple she had found him in, deserted except for Kylo Ren and herself. They trained with lightsabers now, her clean blue one and his spitting red one, spinning and moving under the ancient stones. She realized now how lucky she had been on Starkiller; lucky that he was injured, that he didn’t really want to kill her, because even with training she struggled to keep up with him. He would play with her, let her think she had the advantage, until suddenly she would be flat on her back with his saber at her throat, or watching her own blade would go spiraling out of her hand. But her connection to the Force grew stronger with each lesson, and Kylo promised her holos from the old Jedi archives to help her study. Promised her kyber crystals and a light saber of her own. Promised her as much knowledge as she wanted, even if it wasn't knowledge from the Dark side. What she might become didn't seem to scare him.

\--

During the day she kept a safe physical distance from him, from those glinting yellow eyes and all that Darkness. During the day she was able to tell herself that she was just learning the things Skywalker wouldn’t teach her. That she could still be a creature of Light. But at night it was different. At night they huddled together on the thin mattress that had been shoved into an alcove, his warm breath on the back of her neck, because the nights on this moon were long and cold and pitch black. Because she had spent all her nights cold and shivering by herself, and she didn’t feel bad about allowing herself this indulgence. Because with him there she couldn’t tell the difference between being asleep and being awake, because there were no nightmares waiting to terrify her, just the weight of his body against hers.

 _What were they like. Your parents?_ She asked one night, when the darkness had swallowed them up and she didn’t have to look him in the eye to ask the question. He sighed heavily and pressed his face against her shoulder blades. _They just… weren’t very good at being parents_. _I don’t think they ever thought they would be. In all fairness to them, I was a difficult child. I made things worse than they had to be, even when I was little._ There wasn’t anger in his voice, just weariness, and she wondered if he was the same person in the darkness that he was when the sun came up; if he really was different, or if she just saw him that way. It sounded so unlike him. _They loved you._ She responded, and she felt him chuckle, the soft sound vibrating through her ribs. _That’s not always enough._

It _should_ be enough, she thinks. But then again, how would she know? If anyone had ever loved her, it had been long before she could remember. Maybe her family had loved her, and it just hadn’t been enough. She doubted, now, that she would ever know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title for this chapter comes from Warren Zevon's song "The Vast Indifference of Heaven," originally off the album 'Mutineer,' but I've always loved the version from his live album, 'Learning to Flinch.'


	5. The Hurt Gets Worse And The Heart Gets Harder

When he returned to the Temple, Luke Skywalker was dead and Kylo Ren’s right arm had been cut off just below the elbow. She blanched when he removed his glove, saw his pale skin replaced with cold metal and black rubber, and she couldn’t take her eyes off it. “It’s a tradition in my family,” he had said, one corner of his mouth turning up into a smirk. He was still high on the knowledge that he had wiped out the last of the Jedi after all these years, his sickly yellow eyes glowing with victory and mirth. But she didn’t think it was funny.

She had thought of him, all this time, as indestructible. She had seen Chewbacca’s bowcaster knock men clear across the room, but Kylo had taken a hit to his side and still managed to keep fighting. He could have beaten her, she knows now, if he hadn’t been so desperate to persuade her to be his apprentice. He had survived all the torture disguised as ‘lessons’ that Snoke had thrown at him, and he had more than his fair share of scars (she had caused some of them), but this was different, somehow. She knew she should be horrified at what he had done, because he had made sure that the last glimmer of hope for the Rebellion had been wiped out. But instead she just felt anger, not at what he had done, but at what he had let happen to him.

So she had yelled and screamed and thrown things at him. She knew she must look crazy, she _felt_ crazy, and him just standing there taking her abuse made her even angrier. And so she yelled some more, because suddenly, and for the first time in years, she was terrified. Terrified of what would have happened if Skywalker had swung his lightsaber just a little more to the left. Terrified of the fact that now there were two good men, men who had fought the Empire and been heroes of the New Republic who were now dead because she couldn’t find it in herself to kill Kylo Ren and end this once and for all. Terrified that if something happened to him she would once again be alone in her head, alone like she had been back on Jakku.

When he crawled into bed that night he kissed her, a soft gesture that was clearly meant as a peace offering. But she pulled him down on top of her, deepening the kiss and biting down on his lip until he moaned into her mouth. She laced her fingers through his and pulled on his arm until his full weight was on her instead of his elbows. He was bulky and heavy and so very _real_ , more real than anything had ever been in her life. Her other hand slid under the collar of his shirt until it rested over his heart, feeling it beating under her palm, his skin warm and smooth where she dug her nails into it. He broke off the kiss only to drag his mouth down her neck, biting down at the juncture of her shoulder. _I won’t live in this galaxy all alone_ , she pushed the thought toward him through their bond, and he looked up at her, yellow-eyed and nearly feral in the dim light. _I know_ he responded, bringing his lips back to hers, _I feel it, too_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title for this chapter comes from Warren Zevon's song "Accidently Like A Martyr," off of the album 'Excitable Boy.'
> 
> This chapter was actually the inspiration for this whole story, so I'm glad I finally caught up to where I started! The next (and last) chapter should be up soon, but it is going to be very short.
> 
> As always, comments and criticism are most welcome!


	6. Very Few Are Chosen, And Fewer Still Are Called

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and criticism are always welcome! I want to thank everyone who took the time to read and leave kudos or comments. Special shout-out to CharlotteCAgain, whose encouragement is half of why this story didn’t end at Chapter 2.

_We could kill him,_ he told her as they lay on the floor of the Temple, his heavy arms wrapped around her. He had been stealing away from his master more and more, preferring to spend his time here, training her, although he would still leave for months at a time for missions. _You think we are strong enough?_ She whispered, as if someone might hear them in the vast, self-imposed emptiness. _Yes._ He said without hesitation. She shifted so that her head was pillowed against his chest, listened to the soft thudding of his heart. _This would all be over, then. No more Jedi, no more Sith. Just us._

And what are we? She wanted to ask, but she knew that there was no answer. Perhaps it didn’t matter. The years since she had left Jakku had rid her of the idea that the galaxy could be easily split into black and white. The galaxy had spent generations ripping itself apart over Jedi and Sith, Republics and Empires, rebels and soldiers, and what had it wrought, except more destruction and death?

 _What about the First Order?_ She asked, and he scoffed. _Let Hux have it. The galaxy has spent too long being ruled by Force users, because they were the only ones who would do it. The universe is full of regular people, let them take responsibility for themselves._ She wondered if he would really be able to give up everything he had worked for- killed for- so easy. His arm tightened around her waist. _I already have everything I want,_ he whispered, and she shuddered slightly at his words. _So we opt out. And then what do we do?_ He nuzzled his face into her neck,

_Whatever we want._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was heavily inspired by Gully Foyles’ speech at the end of the book The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, where the main character says that: “I’ve handed life and death back to the people who do the living and the dying,” instead of keeping power in the hands of ‘tigers’ who take power because regular people are too apathetic to do it themselves. The book is a classic of science fiction literature, and I can’t recommend it enough for those of you who are into that kind of thing. One day when I have the time and money to go to grad school I would love to write a paper on all the odd power dynamics in Star Wars and how they compare to those in Bester’s work (yes, I am a massive nerd).
> 
> The title for this chapter comes from Warren Zevon’s “Mr. Bad Example,” off the album of the same name. For those of you who are keeping track of this kind of thing (a.k.a. just me), it is pretty much the only song I’ve used that is actually pretty funny (the line I used is talking about hair transplants, of all things). The others (Mutineer, They Moved The Moon, Please Stay, Vast Indifference of Heaven, and Accidently Like A Martyr) are all the sad, haunting songs that make up the bulk of Zevon’s work, but “Excitable Boy” is much more like “Werewolves of London” or “The Hockey Song” in that it is pretty light-hearted and goofy.


End file.
